Talk:City 17
Comment removal removed a comment from a description under the citadel from the canals "obvious compensation for something". "The outskirts of City 17 features industrial districts and additional Soviet housing, most of which are considered off-limits to citizens and are primarily guarded by better trained and augmented Combine Elites." What is the source for this? I didn't see any Elites in there, if that means the areas seen in Water Hazard. :Good question, that would be an unsourced statement. Elites don't show up in or around City 17 until after the uprising. --MattyDienhoff 09:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC) Actual City? I think I might know what city this is. You find a "Cafe Baltic" near the train station so we can assume that the coast is the Baltic Sea. The only Russian-speaking city on the Baltic is St. Petersburg. Tell me if you find any errors in my logic. ---- The majority of the Writing in city 17 isn't Russian it's Bulgarian. Common mistake. ---- Okay, but the engine you arrive behind is an almost exact match for the Тепловоз ТЭП80. There are only two, both stationed in, uh, St Petersburg. Edit: Only one, I'm pretty sure, still exists. Combine Indentification Where was it confirmed 314 URB-LOC 0017 is the identification for City 17? I was under the assumption that number was the identification for a particular Advisor Pod (granted, LOC could mean location, suggesting 0017 is the identification for City 17). Thanks for clearing this up. (Strat-N8 02:18, 22 February 2009 (UTC)) Location of the City "City 17 was a city in an unknown Eastern European region" Gordon Freeman went from the City 17 to the Black Mesa East by canals. Hoewever, if you want to go from the eastern europe to the New Mexico(where the Black Mesa located in), you should cross the Atlantic Ocean, not canals. So I think City 17 is located in America. -- 15:07, September 26, 2009 (UTC) :ROFL! I rarely read such nonsense. Black Mesa East is not in New Mexico! Black Mesa East and the Black Mesa Research Facility are two different things, hence the "East" in the name, because it's located East of America, in Europe! Did you play the games? Did you read RtB?... Klow 15:17, September 26, 2009 (UTC) Background and origins of City 17 Why is there "???" where it should show the Russian letters? Malekron 02:58, December 25, 2009 (UTC) *Fixed. Also it's not only Russian, it is also Bulgarian. ШЛЫК 12:18, December 25, 2009 (UTC) What language is (canonically) spoken in City 17? Barney Calhoun was a resident of the united states, presumably, when he worked at the Black Mesa research facility in New Mexico. Wallace Breen, presumably, is also american. Yet mister Calhoun has infiltrated the City 17 metropolice undetected; and doctor Breen has made City 17 his base of operations, and delivers daily propaganda to its residents. City 17 is believed – based on strong evidence found on a map in Half Life 2: Episode 1 showing a river called "Draugava" going through the city – to be the latvian capital city of Riga. If this is the case, then the most common spoken languages in City 17 should be latvian and russian, unless the Breen administration is attempting to institute a global language (such as english). It is impossible to say just from the game itself whether english is indeed being spoken by any of the characters, since different versions of the game from different countries use different voice actors, speaking different languages and with different accents. However, in-game models such as telephone booths and train schedules appear to be written in english, in contrast with other signs, which are written in cyrillic text; and these would not change between different versions of the game. Is there any indication, canonically, what language is actually being spoken here – for example, in Raising The Bar, which I have not read? Элэн Сила 17:53, April 9, 2012 (UTC) :Interesting thoughts, I never really questioned the languages spoken, i always assumed english. Maybe when further episodes/games are released we'll get a hint about it. -kat I do not recall the source by heart but I recall it being mentioned by one f the writers that the Breencasts were intended to loop through dozens of languages, and that as such citizens would all speak in many different languages. This linguistic diversity was canceled though as it would increase the games file size, which was already large for the time. (2004) Although most the city's writing is Bulgarian and indeed Raising the bar confirms the architecture is greatly inspired by the Bulgarian city of Sophia 22:39, March 16, 2014 (UTC) City 17, location. "City 17,14 or Биркутград which is Birkutgrad if translated to English which is City 17's actual name before the Combine invasion, was a grand city in an unknown Eastern European country" Read.. "Despite popular belief, Valve has never stated specifically that City 17 is located in Eastern Europe. They have only ever said that it is based on Eastern Europe.2 However, due to the Cyrillic writings it can be assumed that it is indeed Eastern Europe. " I checked the source, it directs to the Architecture sub-section of the page and to Dr. Wallace Breen's Breencasts. The only citation stating that City 17 was named 'Birkutgrad', is a thread of a Hl2RP's server which lists that as its own canon. Westerners can not simply look at the architecture and assume that it is the city 'Birkutgrad'. I'm Eastern European, and have lived in Eastern Europe almost my entire life, so really, I'm curious, just how did the Western users declare City 17 to be the port of Birkutgrad without any actual source aside from speculation? --Suff (talk) 04:19, November 18, 2012 (UTC) Should replace the Birkutgrad text with the second comment, Fan-lore on no basis shouldn't take predominance on the wiki. In response to Suff there is a a massive misconception that C17 is in Russia when in fact most the writing is Bulgarian, there is no real way to determine what real life city it is because there are so many languages used in the city in text. People who dont understand slavic languages just assume they are Russin which is how someone thought the HL2RP name of Birkutgrad was real. 00:56, November 28, 2013 (UTC) Evidence this could be Russia Of course, we can all agree that the location of City 17 is in Eastern Europe. First time I played, I initially thought it was in Belgrade. Yes, there is Bulgarian written all over the place, but there is one sign in the hospital that point to Russia. For example (see photo). My Bulgarian and Russian is a bit rusty, but I can transliterate both to know that this sign has a character not used in the Bulgarian cyrillic script. This is the letter "ы" it has a "y" sound to it, and in Russian, these would mean in order: Klinika (Clinic), Patsiyenty (Patients), Prachechnyy (Laundry), Khirurgiya (Surgery). --The user formerly known as buzzfeed (talk) 16:23, February 20, 2014 (UTC) There is also plain English writing there with no game-play reason to be there. C17 has a lot of linguistic jumps, even Swedish writing appears. however Bulgarian is the most dominant. What needs to be noted is Half life 2's Bulgarian art director, Viktor Antonov, left the valve without working on episode 1 or 2, and as such a lot of consistency was lost and as such the location of city 17 is alot more vague in episode 1. 22:53, March 16, 2014 (UTC) influences "In addition to incorporating Eastern European elements, examples of Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, Finnish and French influences also exist, suggesting that the setting is something of a montage of European locations. " What are these other influences? Specifically Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.